My advice is to spend just half of your budget on the initial purchase
although that's based on the market when I bought my boat in 2005. With
things as depressed as they are now, the numbers may have changed. Still,
you might find it useful to see what I went through with a boat of the same
purchase price you mention that had a good survey and has turned out to be a
great, solid, boat.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~rlma/BoatIndex.htm

--
Roger Long